


The Priestess and the Pond

by Hinganbachuru (Twilight_Joltik)



Series: Asamagica [4]
Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club, Hidden Block - Fandom, Normal Boots, PBG Hardcore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Fairy Tales, Gen, I promise these elements make sense together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Joltik/pseuds/Hinganbachuru
Summary: Magical Girl Hana Mizuno faces her greatest challenge yet: playing D&D with her friends.





	The Priestess and the Pond

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey, a story I've been trying to get written for almost an entire year! Another entry in mine and Tomate's byzantine Magical Girl AU, but like, almost entirely disconnected to the last thing I wrote for it. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!

****

Hana felt more nervous than she had in her life. Fighting Shane had been terrifying, trying to calm the disputes between Normal Boots and Hidden Block had been agonizing, and facing off against the Shadow Siren had just flat out hurt, but this level of nerves was unparalleled. She was going to do something, maybe everything, completely wrong, she just knew it!

She looked frantically between Ian and Jared, two people she trusted but in this moment made a lump grown in her throat. How could she possibly handle this? She knew they had faith in her, but she didn’t even know how to start!

“Hana, if you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to stay,” Luke offered, seemingly noting her nerves. “I’m sure we can do this fine with just the four of us.”

“No!”, she cried, more to herself than him. “I want to do this! I want to help!”

Caddy sighed deeply and leaned over to Jeff with a whisper loud enough to hear halfway across the clubroom. “Seriously, she’s been trying to decide her character’s class for ten minutes!”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Oh, and like you didn’t spend an obscene amount of time on your generic-ass ranger.”

“Excuse me, but Kagane is not generic at all; she’s a badass with a tragic past!”, Caddy snipped. He fell back in his chair, looking away from Ian almost decisively. “I’m just saying, Hana should just pick one at random at this point.”

Sighing deeply, Hana nodded in agreement. “I just… well, I’d wanted to be a Cleric, but Ian’s already one and I figured you guys didn’t need two, so I don’t know!”

“Well, I mean, you’re subbing for Peebs,” Jeff reminded her. “He’s a Paladin, so we’re used to-”

Jared shot a glare at him. “It’s Hana’s first character! She’ll remember this one for her entire life, so it has to be her choice alone!”

Scanning the guidebook Jared had lent her again, she let out another sigh. “I guess Druid is fine.”

Caddy let out a very loud sigh of relief and shoved some dice at her. “Great, now roll for stats and choose a name and we can get a move on. We left on a major cliffhanger last time, I wanna know if Moosey dies or not!”

“Actually, no,” Jared corrected, flipping to the page on stat rolls for Hana, who was very thankful she didn’t have to ask. “I was gonna do a one-shot for this one, so Hana can ease into it better.”

Pouting, Caddy muttered that he would rather have just gone on without PBG and Ian very clearly kicked him under the table. That seemed to be business as usual for those two, so Hana wasn’t worried and just kept on making her Half-Elf Druid.

As she put her character together, she overheard some idle conversation from her friends. “Have any of you heard of that masked Magical Girl?”, Luke questioned. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jared shrug. “Well, I mean, that could mean literally anything. A lot of us wear masks.”

“You mean the one who even wears a mask around other Magical Girls, right?”, Ian questioned. When Luke nodded, she was pretty sure Ian smiled a bit in turn. 

Jeff, though, was the one to continue the thought. “Yeah, he’s a mystery to pretty much everyone. You don’t get many people like that.”

“He?”, Caddy repeated. “What makes you think they’re a he?”

Hesitating, Jeff seemed to flounder for an answer for a minute before Ian provided one. “I mean, we don’t know, but I can’t really see anyone but an insecure teenage guy wearing a mask and jumping around like some half-rate Tuxedo Mask.”

“Fair enough,” Luke conceded. “So what, does he just hide because he’s embarrassed or unsure of himself?”

“Well, I know that’s not unheard of, for a Magical Girl to be so nervous that they cover their face,” Ian muttered. “But usually they use scarves.” He cast a knowing look at Caddy that was returned with a glare. 

Jared nodded. “I’m sure he has his reasons. Anyways, Hana, are ya done?”

She scanned her character sheet. “I… think so… Wait, how do I figure out my speed again?”

Sighing, Jared looked over it himself and glanced at the guidebook before penciling in a 30 in the slot. “There. Now, everyone all ready?”

Judging by the “fucking finally” that Caddy mumbled under his breath, Hana figured everyone was ready by a long shot. Everyone turned to Jared as he took a place at the head of the table and leaned forward on his hands. 

“So!”, he exclaimed, glancing down at the pages of a notebook covered in a jumble of barely legible characters. “Our noble heroes have been commissioned to protect the priestess of a local shrine on her pilgrimage to an old palace. She claims it’s on top of a nearby hill, near a pond. While none of the heroes have ever been there, they’ve heard legends of the place.”

“Can I do a lore check?”, Jeff blurted out. 

Jared checked his notes again. “Yeah, roll for it.”

A dark blue dice flecked with white fell on the table, rolling until it stopped with a 17 on its face. Jared frowned a bit, while Jeff smiled. “Sol has heard from other mages who have attempted the pilgrimage themselves that there is no such palace on the hill, only perfectly still pond.”

Hana wasn’t quite sure why at first, but her first thought was that the pond must really be a portal to the palace. But, before she could figure out where that thought came from, Ian gave Jared a rather scathing look. “Lady Tsubaki, really?”

Wincing momentarily before he regained his composure, Jared nodded. “Sorry, Peebs canceled so last minute that I didn’t really have time to think of anything for a good one-shot! This was all I could think of!”

“Lady… Tsubaki?”, Luke repeated, sounding as lost as Hana felt. “Sorry, is that like, a thing we should know about?”

Ian shook his head. “Nah, you didn’t really grow up around Magical Girls, so you wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s like, I guess it’s a Magical Girl fairy tale.”

“Is Ian the only one who’s heard of it?”, Jared questioned. “Or well, Ian and Jeff-”

“I dunno what you’re all talking about,” Jeff interjected. “I came into the picture a little late in the game for fairy tales, y’know?”

Sinking down behind the trifold he’d jammed his notes behind, Jared seemed to let out a little sigh. “Okay, good. So, Ian, would you mind being the priestess, since you know the story?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ian agreed. “Do I need a new character sheet for it, or can I just use mine?”

“Your stats... will work fine...”, Jared mumbled, suddenly scribbling something down furiously. “But your inventory…” He straightened back up and pulled a piece of paper out of his notebook, folding it and handing it to Ian. “Here, that’s what you have. Don’t let anyone see it; I don’t want any more spoilers.”

Ian nodded, and Caddy chuckled a bit. “So Moosey is a shrine maiden now, hm?”

“Can it, Alm,” Ian shot back. Alm, that had always seemed like a weird nickname. His username on stuff was Caddicarrus, not anything with “alm” in it, so didn’t match his pet name for Brutalmoose, so what was it supposed to be off of? Probably some inside joke, Hana figured.

“So, uh,” Jared started back up again. “Priestess Tsubaki leads her group of hired guards up towards the mountain, when suddenly, a mysterious figure appears before them, cloaked in shadow. A female voice begins to speak, sounding distant and echoing: ‘Return to me my gem, and I shall spare the lives of your companions.’”

Casting a confused glance over at Jared, Ian mouthed something like “do I reply?” that was answered with a nod. “Uh,” Ian started, looking at the paper Jared had handed him. “She clutches at a cord tied around her neck with a blue Magatama bead dangling on it. ‘You will never touch it,’ she cries defiantly,” Ian reported with none of the enthusiasm he claimed the priestess had.

“The shadow cackles,” Jared continued. “‘I won’t have to,” it decrees before vanishing. It leaves a pool of some dark energy where it stood. It churns like a puddle in a rainstorm before another form appears from it: a great lizard, sputtering and spitting clouds of cold air.”

Caddy raised his hand as if asking Jared to call on him. “Uh, Nature check? That’s the right one, right?” When Jared nodded, as if giving a go-ahead, Caddy tossed a D20 that fell off the table, leaving him to scramble and redo it. “Uh, is eight enough?”

“I mean, it’s a partial success,” Jared noted, glancing down at his notes again. “Kagane looks at the shadowy beast and realizes it looks like an ordinary giant lizard, save for the darkness dripping off of it and the ice it’s spewing out.”

Ice? That sounded familiar to Hana too. Like an old story she’d read when she was little or something. She tried to remember, to the point of zoning out as the others rushed into combat. Why did this sound like something she’d heard of?

Faintly, she could hear a laugh that had been long since lost to the sands of time. An old friend looking at her pleadingly. “Pleeeeaaaaseee let me be the monster?”, he’d always ask, and she’d agree, but only if she could be the knight. 

She could almost remember a game she would play with her best friend, and his older brother whenever he could be dragged into it. He always called it The Princess Game, said it was based on his favorite bedtime story. The princess and the knight would go up the mountain with the monster attacking them with various vile creatures with ice magic, played by their stuffed animals, until they got to the lake and the princess went into the castle through a portal and the monster captured her, wanting to sacrifice her to gain power but finding her not quite suitable after all. Then the knight would save her and they’d all live happily ever after.

But, that very specific story had come from PBG, who to her knowledge, hadn’t grown up around Magical Girl stuff. Sure, he was all over it now, but he didn’t even have powers! He wasn’t a Magical Girl, so was this some weird coincidence?

“Hana!” A loud voice shouted and snapped her out of her thoughts. “Hana, it’s your turn!”

Oh, right! Attacking! She glanced down at her spell list. “Uh, I cast… Faerie Fire?”

Jared gave her the disappointed look of a father who’d caught his child stealing a cookie before dinner. “You want to outline the very visible giant lizard with purple light?”

Dang, was that what Faerie Fire did? It had sounded like a cool attack… “Uh, n-no, um…” She looked at the spell list again. Maybe-? “Speak with Animals!”

“Alright, roll for it.”

Taking a deep breath, Hana tossed down the D20 that Jared had loaned her. 13; was that good enough?

She heard more dice clattering, and Jared nodded. “You can hear words in the beast’s snarls: ‘Kill the vessel, kill the vessel.’ That’s all it seems to say.”

Vessel? Hana took another breath. Maybe she could go along with the plot she remembered from her childhood games. “Um… excuse me, mister Lizard? Could you please tell the monster that Princess- er, Priestess Tsubaki isn’t going to be a strong enough sacrifice?”

Both Jared and Ian looked at her with confusion. She’d gotten it right? So it was the story PBG had told her? “Hana,” Ian started. “Do you know this story?”

“I guess?”, she admitted, voice squeaking a bit. “Me and PBG used to play a game like this when we were little, he said it was a story his mom told him.”

“His mom told him a Magical Girl fairytale,” Jared repeated, clearly incredulous. “But he’s not… are you sure?”

Hana nodded, and Jared shoved his trifold down with an annoyed huff. “Well, so much for a good one-shot. How about we do this another time?”

Caddy stood up and left before Jared could say anything, muttering under his breath about this being dumb. Jeff looked at Hana like he was gonna say something but just ended up standing up and leaving instead. Luke and Ian followed, leaving just her and Jared. 

“Sorry I ruined your campaign,” Hana apologized, a pit growing in her stomach. “I d-didn’t mean to…”

Jared shook his head. “It’s fine, Hana. I would have kept going but, I wanted your first experience playing to be the best it could be. Sorry it wasn’t quite what I’d hoped, but I promise I’ll have a way better one for you next time!”

Not knowing what to say, she just nodded as Jared continued to pack up. But, she couldn’t quite let the whole thing go. “How would Peebs have known a Magical Girl fairytale when he was little?”, she questioned.

“I…” Jared trailed off into a sigh. “I have no idea. Maybe he had a Magical Girl ancestor way back, or his mom had a friend who was one, or something. I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

He waved a goodbye at her, leaving her alone with her thoughts as she tried to gather her papers. No big deal, huh? Well, she’d see about that.

Pulling her phone out, she sent PBG a text she was pretty sure he’d understand whenever he got it: “You got it wrong. It was Priestess, not Princess."


End file.
